UW-Madison labor economist and High Road Strategy Center associate director Laura Dresser discusses the group’s State of Working Wisconsin 2024 report on job numbers, wage growth and gender pay gaps.
Do you have any advice for students shopping for a personal loan?
“Be realistic. Make sure you understand the terms of the loan and have calculated your expected loan payment,” says James M. Johannes, a professor emeritus at the Wisconsin School of Business. “Recognize that these scheduled debt payments will in almost all cases severely and adversely impact your ability to borrow to fund a car, house, etc. after you graduate until the loan is repaid. Be patient! Recognize that life is a journey, and you might have to live frugally until the loans are repaid.”
The University of Wisconsin’s bid for a new trial was rebuffed by a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday in a long-running dispute between the school and Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab over computer processor technology that previously led to a $506 million victory for the university.
Research this week published by the University of Toronto’s Jason Choi, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Rishabh Kirpalani and Duong Dang, and New York University’s Diego Perez highlights the extent of America’s ‘exorbitant privilege.’
In their report ‘Exorbitant privilege and the sustainability of U.S. public debt’ they note that this special status “increases the maximal sustainable debt by approximately 22% of GDP.”
In other words, the U.S. government can sustainably borrow as much as 22% of GDP more than it would otherwise be able to if it weren’t the supplier of the global reserve currency.
Written by Leonard Polzin, dairy markets and policy outreach specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
SixLine was founded in 2022 by Katy Jinkins, a former materials science PhD graduate from UW–Madison. Jinkins focused her academic work on integrating carbon nanotubes—straws of carbon atoms, ten thousand times thinner than a human hair—into electronics. Her work began in Professor Mike Arnold’s lab in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and led to multiple papers and patents that cover alignment techniques and the integration of carbon nanotubes into electronics, which is the basis of SixLine.
What advice do you have for parents who want to open a bank account for their child?
“To put into their children’s minds the importance of compounding of interest and that time is the great help in building wealth. also, to discuss the importance of FDIC insured banks vs. non,” says Phil Greenwood, senior lecturer in the Management and Human Resources Department at the Wisconsin School of Business.
Direct, free and easy to use online filing was blocked for two decades in a lobbying campaign by the tax preparation industry, ProPublica reported in 2017. Former University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Don Moynihan has also written an account of how the original free-filing program hobbled.
WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” checked in with Christy Remucal, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about whether Madisonians should be concerned, and if so, to what degree.
A new workforce development program in Wisconsin will train 2,000 workers over the next five years in a growing sector of the health care industry.
The Actualizing Biohealth Career Pathways project is a partnership between Wisconsin technical colleges, universities and employers that want to keep up with anticipated demand in the field.
Development of the Columbia Energy Storage Project is led by Alliant in partnership with WEC Energy Group, Madison Gas and Electric, Shell Global Solutions US, Electric Power Research Institute, UW–Madison and Madison Area Technical College.
Beyond partnerships between the utilities, Alliant is also working with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison College, Shell Global Solutions U.S. and the Electric Power Research Institute.
Oliver Schmitz is a professor in nuclear engineering and engineering physics at UW-Madison and director of the university’s Clean Energy Community Initiative. He said the Clean Energy Community Initiative helped Alliant craft its proposal for federal funding, and is providing support to the community benefits portion of the plan.
Written by Jay Hill, vice president of Advanced Technologies at GE HealthCare, and Anjon Audhya, senior associate dean for basic research, biotechnology and graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
An experimental nasal spray flu vaccine being developed by a Madison company, based on UW-Madison research, boosted immunity in older adults who also got a flu shot, compared with those who got only a shot, a study found.
Kurt Paulsen said he can understand that perspective, because for current residents, the market seems to be in good shape.
“We’ve lived in our house for a long period of time, it’s gone up in value,” said Paulsen, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of urban planning. “And we refinanced our mortgages at less than 3%. So for the majority of people who are already here, it does not look like there’s a housing crisis, right?”
But Paulsen, who researches housing policy and has written two of Dane County’s housing needs assessments, has many data points ready to illustrate the extent of the housing problem.
According to the University of Wisconsin Division of Extension, cranberry marshes cover 21,000 acres in 20 of Wisconsin’s central and northern counties where more than 250 cranberry farms produce nearly 61 percent of the nation’s supply.
Federal regulators have convinced a jury and a judge that Google illegally quashes competing browsers and apps. Could consumers benefit if Google is forced to give up its monopoly power? UW-Madison IT Specialist Beth D’Angelo joins us to talk about this and more in our tech update.
In February, March, and May of this year, Wisconsin led the nation in “inflation adjusted hourly earnings growth,” the release said, citing data from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That means “wages are going up faster than prices” — a very good thing, said Ross Milton, an assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in state and local finance.
Madison serves as the innovator – home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where research is king. The school ranks eighth in nation for research expenditures among public and private universities according to the National Science Foundation with more than $1.5 billion invested annually. UW also ranks high in patents granted – 12th in 2023. Additionally, the city’s startup scene is consistently ranked within the top-150 ecosystems globally. This innovation leads to products that need to be manufactured. Enter Milwaukee.
One such proposal will come from the WiSys, a nonprofit supporting organization of the Universities of Wisconsin. It is the technology transfer office for 11 public universities, meaning it protects the intellectual property of academic inventors and aims to move such discoveries into the marketplace. The WiSys proposal, which got a Phase 1 nod from NSF, seeks to make Wisconsin a global leader in sustainable agriculture and involves about 30 partners.
Wisconsin researchers are among a select few to document manure spill trends.
In 15 years, reported incidents statewide jumped from about 40 to roughly 200 annually, but Department of Natural Resources and University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension staff don’t believe their frequency actually increased.
In addition to the cost of a monthly internet subscription, other barriers exist for households that have the internet infrastructure but don’t connect. Task force member Gail Huycke said barriers include a lack of digital literacy, not knowing how to use the technology, poor reliability and fear.
Huycke is a professor of practice and broadband specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Division of Extension. As part of the Connected Aging Communities initiative, she worked with seniors on using the internet and found people over age 65 are the most likely to be disconnected.
Madison serves as the innovator — home to UW-Madison, where research is king. The school ranks eighth in the nation for research expenditures among public and private universities. According to the National Science Foundation, UW invests more than $1.5 billion annually. UW also ranks high in patents granted – 12th in the nation in 2023. Additionally, the city’s startup scene is consistently ranked among the top 150 globally.
Gregory Nemet, professor of public affairs at UW-Madison, and Morgan Edwards, associate professor of climate policy at the school, are two of the lead authors on the 222-page report. Titled “The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal,” it is the second in a series of annual reports and shows how steep the battle against climate change is.
Somesh Jha, a computer science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison researching artificial intelligence, said the rapid development of AI is expected to lead to more efficiencies in the workplace. But he said it could also lead to job losses in some industries, as well as lead to the creation of new jobs.
He praised the task force for taking on “questions, like, ‘okay, what are we doing now that can be done much more efficiently using AI? And what new positions which we might need, given that new capability?’”
County fairs around the state have already gone through the additional testing requirements for avian flu this summer. The Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory has received nearly 400 samples every week since June, according to director Keith Poulsen.
Poulsen said they could accommodate more tests, but there hasn’t been the demand.
There is a limited number of weather reporting stations in Wisconsin, leaving some areas like New Berlin in data gaps.
A new weather station network run by University of Wisconsin-Madison is hoping to change that. It is called WiscoNet and New Berlin just got one of the newest weather stations.
As a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wicks created ice cream that doesn’t melt even after four hours at room temperature. While her concoction isn’t ready for consumption, her work could change the way we eat, store, and transport the beloved dairy treat.
“I just always wondered: Does the money really get where they’re telling me it’s going?” Grimm asked Public Investigator. “Do they get a tax break?”
The short answer is yes and no.
Yes, the money customers donate at the cash register does go to the appropriate organization or cause, said Ross Milton, assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and tax expert.
“Assuming that they are following the law,” Milton added. And no, businesses can’t receive a tax break for donations raised by customers, Milton said. If the donations aren’t made with the business’s money, it can’t collect the tax benefits, Milton explained.
Historically, getting an up-close look at home insurance costs across the U.S. has been almost impossible because private insurers don’t publicly disclose what they charge. Benjamin Keys, a professor of real estate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Philip Mulder, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Business, have found a workaround.
For the first time, a fusion device at the University of Wisconsin in Madison has generated plasma, inching one step closer toward using nuclear fusion as a a new source of carbon-free energy.
The university’s physicists and engineers have been building and testing the device at a lab in Stoughton for the last four years, which is referred to as the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror or WHAM. The magnetic mirror device became operational on July 15.
A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists has taken a major step toward creating a clean, reliable and powerful source of energy.
Four years in the making, it is part of a broader approach to using nuclear fusion energy that, unlike existing nuclear technology, does not create large amounts of radioactive waste.
For the first time, a fusion device at the University of Wisconsin in Madison has generated plasma, inching one step closer toward using nuclear fusion as a a new source of carbon-free energy.
“If anything, we’re gaining from undocumented immigrants,” said Karen Holden, a UW-Madison professor emerita of public affairs and consumer science who focuses on Social Security.
Hatch said the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has a network of people who want to see small producers succeed.
“There are so many resources in Wisconsin, you just need to start introducing yourself and asking questions,” he said.
Dennis Hancock is center director at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center, which will administer the new facility in partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. He said part of the decline in Wisconsin dairy farms can be attributed to workforce shortage and a possible solution is replacing some of the workforce with technology.
“One of the ways to save smaller farms, in my opinion and those that have actually made the conversion would agree, is through the use of robotics,” Hancock recently said on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “Robotics are quite expensive, but they do save a lot of labor.”
“We had the warmest February on record and our soil moisture was down to 16% in some areas. And now we’ve gone from one of the most severe deficits to one of the most severe surpluses (of moisture) in just a couple of months,” said Kevin Jarek, University of Wisconsin Division of Extension Crops and Soils educator for Outagamie County. “In my 25 years with Extension, this is unbelievable.”
The state budget committee on Tuesday approved the release of $27 million for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to cover grants aimed at creating a regional tech hub and to help communities affected by UW shutdowns. The committee also approved money for the Department of Corrections to cover the costs of youth who are serving adult sentences.
Anjon Audhya, senior associate dean for basic research, biotechnology and graduate studies at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. Audhya brought the perspective of a biochemist to the team, with expertise ranging from genetics to mapping mechanisms and pathways that underlie human disease.
Chris Kozina, assistant vice chancellor for industry engagement, UW-Madison. Kozina brought deep industry experience to the party as well as a collegial way of navigating the university’s many colleges, schools and disciplines. There’s little doubt that research universities such as UW-Madison bring important breakthroughs to the table; organizing them in ways they can be applied commercially or for society is the trick. Kozina brought that perspective to the table.
Professor Michael Childers specializes in labor education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said he thinks the likelihood of the case going to the Wisconsin Supreme Court is all but guaranteed.
“This finding — if it was allowed to stand — would, in essence, remove the changes to collective bargaining laws and allow for the provision for all the public sector workers to again collective bargain similar to all the private sector workers in Wisconsin are able to do,” Childers said.
Includes interview with Natasha Paris, Regional crops educator, UW-Madison Extension.
In a lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Katy Jinkins typically starts her day at a filing cabinet full of thin, purple silicon disks that reflect green in the light.
Wisconsin’s application was submitted by a coalition of businesses (GE HealthCare, Accuray, Exact Sciences, Plexus and Rockwell Automation), colleges and universities (Madison Area Technical College, Milwaukee Area Technical College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and the Universities of Wisconsin), economic development agencies (Milwaukee7, Madison Region Economic Partnership and Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation) and workforce training organizations (Employ Milwaukee and WRTP | BIG STEP).
Every patient is a unique individual. They have their own genetics, their own exposures to the environment that they have been in,” said Dr. Muhammed Murtazais, associate director of the Center for Human Genomics and Precision Medicineat the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And, so, precision medicine is this approach that could we actually learn more about each individual patient, so that each patient gets the right drug at the right time.
The Wisconsin hub focuses on personalized medicine, or tailoring treatments to a patient’s genetic makeup or other individual characteristics. Along with UW-Madison and Madison Area Technical College, partners include Madison companies Accuray and Exact Sciences, GE Healthcare and Rockwell Automation in the Milwaukee area and Neenah-based manufacturer Plexus.
“We’re coupling Wisconsin’s innovation capacity with Wisconsin’s manufacturing capacity in a way that is really unique,” said Aaron Olver, managing director of UW-Madison’s University Research Park on Madison’s West Side and steering committee chair for the tech hub.
The nuclear engineering program at UW-Madison is also part of the research mix.
Heather Kirkorian is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who studies how kids and parents interact with digital media. Warning labels are good for raising awareness, she said, but “my sense is that most teens and parents have heard about the potential risks and are aware that that might be a concern.” Treating social media “as analogous to cigarettes is unhelpful, because there are potential benefits of using social media as well, and I don’t think we can make that same argument for smoking cigarettes.”
UW Health plans to build a new cyclotron, which makes radioactive atoms used in scans to detect tumors and other ailments, to expand research and treatment of cancer and conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Born Velvalea Hortense Rodgers in Milwaukee in 1923, the influential public figure was ahead of her time.
She received a scholarship to attend Howard University, in Washington D.C., where she obtained her bachelor’s degree. Phillips continued her studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School and was the first African-American woman to graduate there. She and her husband then opened a Milwaukee law firm.
Written by John Shutske, a professor of biological systems and engineering and also an Extension specialist at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
SHINE Technologies in Janesville is founded by a UW alumnus, Greg Piefer, who came up with the idea for the company while he was a student at the university.
Thirty years ago, when the idea that would give rise to Mirus Bio took shape in a UW-Madison laboratory, scientists were only beginning to piece together the puzzle of human genetics.
UW-Madison entomologist PJ Liesch is back. We talk with him about what’s hampering the spread of spongy moths in Wisconsin. We also talk about how climate change is aiding the spread of joro spiders to northern regions. Then, two WDNR invasive species specialists share success stories from across the state.
University of Wisconsin-Madison social work professor Tova Walsh is glad more people are paying attention to postpartum depression in moms. She said that’s a big improvement.
With a wave of new hemp-derived THC alternatives hitting the market in Wisconsin, we check in with a cannabis historian about what these products are and how they’re shaping policy discussions around marijuana in the state. Interview with Lucas Richert, professor in the School of Pharmacy at UW-Madison.
University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist Jessica Calarco believes her profession is an act of “un-gaslighting people.” She said she wants to help others see the challenges they face in their lives as products of large social structures and forces. In particular, she said she wants women to let go of guilt they might feel when they face struggles because of the unfair burden of social structures place on women.
In her new book, “Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net,” Calarco said women are often tasked with more of the unpaid or underpaid care work that keeps the economy moving.
Sloan Gibson, meanwhile, came looking for ideas she could bring back to her job in the information technology division at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “A rising tide raises all boats,” Gibson said. “Just because a game is accessible … or a piece of tech is accessible doesn’t mean it’s just for people who need the accessibility. It just means more people can use it and enjoy it.”
“When looking for a new checking account, students should take their time to identify accounts specifically tailored to their needs – frequently these are promoted on college campuses in the fall,” says Anita Mukherjee, an associate professor in Risk and Insurance Department at the Wisconsin School of Business. “Many banks offer student-specific checking accounts that come with perks such as no monthly fees, lower minimum balance requirements, and free online banking.”
Answering the political science professor’s query was Dr. Jenny Higgins, director of UW Collaborative for Reproductive Equity and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“How do you feel, right now, being here in person?” Higgins asked the audience in the Great Hall of Harwood Memorial Union.
“I see some nods,” Higgins said. “Now think about trying to communicate that with somebody on your phone or even on Zoom.”
